Subversion

1st printing w/complete number sequence. Author's first mystery. When a D.C. lawyer discovers a web of corruption and scandal that includes millions of dollars missing from a company account, her boss/lover is suddenly found murdered. This one has an interesting history, having been recalled by the publisher less than two weeks before its publication date, and with reviewers and book stores who had received copies being instructed to return them at once. It is rumoured that the book is a roman a clef, with the lead character based on an Alderson acquaintance, and easily identified. Ace book reporter Dennis Loy Johnson, puzzled as to why a publisher would recall a work of fiction, especially a hardcover with the costs involved in its production, asked the Broadway Books publicist (who sent him a letter requesting that he return his copy) about it (she said, "No comment."), then tracked down the author and asked him about it (he said, "No comment."), and finally called the head of corporate affairs at Random House (Broadway's parent company) to ask *him* about it (he said, "No comment."). So there you have it: Broadway Books invested a fair chunk of change in the production of this title, but was willing to throw it all away and apparently consign to pulp all the copies they could get their hands on, this copy not being one of them. Black boards w/black cloth backstrip w/silver spine lettering, 277 pages. Lightly worn dust jacket, which is now in a protective mylar sleeve. A nice copy, unread.